Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Pop Culture: Design a Band

Make a list of bands and artists that you believe have really great names. Even if you don't love the music or consider them a favorite, you hear the name and think, "that's a great name." Throw in good names of movies, good names of books, TV series, while you are at it.

Put three of your favorite names -- music or not -- and put each on a sticky note and up the marker board.

I notice. I wish. I wonder. We'll look at those band names up on the board and discuss using only those stems to start our thinking.

EMPATHY.

3x3 Interviews. Three questions. Three subjects.

1. What sorts of fonts appeal to you? Handwriting? Block? Serif? San Serif?

Collect your responses and include them on your blog post when you discuss the album art you create. Use what you know appeals to others visually to inform your choices.

EXPERIMENT.

Create-A-Band Process

I'd Give Credit to the Creator of this Process But It's From a While Back & I Can't Recall the Link! #arghface.

1. Go to the Random Article link on the Wikipedia front page. (You can find it in the top left navigation menu.) The title of the random article is your new band/artist's name.

2. Go to the Random Quote link on the Quotations Page front page. (You can find it in the left side navigation menu.) You will get a list of random quotes. Pull either a full or partial quote from that page. That is the album title for your band's latest release. (You might also find some song titles this way as well.)

4. Pull that information together and then use an app like Pages, Google Draw or Google Docs, a photo editor like iPhoto or Gimp, or any other application that lets you manipulate words and images, and create your album cover. Export your finished work as a .JPG and post it or PDF and screenshot it and post it on your blog.

PRODUCE.

5. On your blog, create a context for your band. Who are the members? How did they form and when? What genre(s) do they play? What was the gig that led to them making this album? Where do they play? In other words, what is the story behind the band?

Here's the big huge giant challenge of this creative endeavor: take those random elements from above and make them all seem intentional. How might you create sense out of what might be nonsense by applying the filter of music to it? What does this say about the power of music?

6. In a separate blog post, choose an artist or band you enjoy. Select an album by that performer. Explore the relationship between the artist's name, the album's name, and the cover art for that album. To what extent do they align? Where do you see a clear relationship between the visuals and the music? Where do you see it not working out? What about the band's logo or the font used on the album cover?

One to two descriptive paragraphs with visuals to illustrate.

Extra helpful? Embed some Vimeo links or Spotify links or other ways of proving your point through the music.